If any one individual can be credited as the premier figure of rock and roll, it's CHUCK BERRY. His music, lyrics, and free spirit made an indelible impression on millions of young people, including the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

He celebrated the birth of rock and roll in 1955 and he still remains one of its most superbly exciting performers. Each year, more and more people become aware of his enormous influence.

"Rock 'n' roll was the beginning, however tentative, of a mass state of mind (if not way of life) beyond race in America ... No one fully grasped what was happening, but CHUCK BERRY seemed to have an idea. Of all the musicians, he was the one who best recognized these new American kids, and he loved and encouraged them. With an extraordinary leap of empathy, he knew and expressed their feelings, and they understood themselves through him. His songs were hymns to a generation." -- Michael Lydon in RAMPARTS.